Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Why haven't the Ukrainians made a beeline to seize Kaliningrad yet. The Russians are more or less cut off from defending it with dwindling resources to do so.
The pro-independence movement over there might get the job done. Time will tell.
edit: Oh, boy! Can we say that we are entering Ghost in the Shell territory if those drones really exist and will be sent into battle?
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Yeah this sounds like a load of tosh.
a 50 cal mounted on a drone that already has no stabilization? good luck.
Also, Feloni Aero aren't even a registered DoD contractor so I'm not sure how US is "going to send them to Ukraine"
OK. Let's start with: what do you mean by "Russia will win in Ukraine". Serious question.
Second: from this expert analysis of Russia's recent ramp-up, written from before the US and the EU upped military aid:
"The Russian theory of victory is plausible if Ukraine's international partners fail to properly resource the AFU. However, if Ukraine's partners continue to provide sufficient ammunition and training support to the AFU to enable the blunting of Russian attacks in 2024, then Russia is unlikely to achieve significant gains in 2025..... If Russia lacks the prospect of gains in 2025, given its inability to improve force quality for offensive operations, then it follows that it will struggle to force Kyiv to capitulate by 2026."
The question is, how long can Russia sustain throwing its relatively limited resources against a wall (the cost of supporting Ukraine is a rounding error for the West - for Russia it is enormous - so who really has the advantage here in a war of attrition?). While it's amped up military production (and had to divert huge funds to support various civil industries), we've seen dams break, refineries set ablaze, problems with its aircraft - a slow degradation of civil society. Russia can't afford a stalemate either, and the West can certainly give Ukraine enough support to hold Russia in place, for as long as it wants to.
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I knew that was just too wacky to be true.
I'm sure one can mount some weapons on this kind of drone, but we are not that far yet.
This number is hard to believe. But I think it's fair to say that Russian casualties by and large have been crazy high.
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Aye ridiculous, they don't need this shit, just give them 3 cheap fpv drones for every Russian troop in Ukraine.
Just to theorise though, would something like this work with single shot? Assuming one .50 cal round wouldn't crash the thing, would that one shot be accurate?
I agree with your post in general but can't help mentioning the Spanish civil war. Fascist air supremacy there seemed so decisive that for a few years it seemed like the ability to bomb civilians would win any conflict. The US over Vietnam was close too I'd have thought. No expert though, just musings.
There's a 100% chance this is fake.
The US didn't actually have air superiority over the north. People (not saying you do this) sometimes conflate the Vietcong (South Vietnamese communist guerilla) with the PAVN (North Vietnamese regular army), but the north actually had a quite modern military. Obviously they couldn't completely stop the US from bombing, but it wasn't done for free.
Yes, hence why I only said close. The US did an awful lot of bombing of the North too of course, but they were countered with migs and sams I agree.
Sure, that's fair.
I tend to disregard the interwar period of aerial combat as nothing more than experimentation. By the end of WWI Tactical bombing and Close Air support started to be plausible things. Then technology grew so fast in the interwar period that everything that to be built and rebuilt. For example, even dogfights in mid WWI were biplanes and monoplanes trying to get rid of each other so they could get proper reconaissance of the battlefield.
If people got "Air superiority" or "Air Supremacy" it was entirely by accident and it wasn't until 1937-38 that various air forces actually began to assemble coherent doctrines. Ju-87 performed admirably in the Spanish Civil War but honestly by 1940 it was wholly obsolete, despite modern propoganda telling you it was a fearsome weapon.
So yes, on paper, the Fascists got "Air Supremacy" by its actual definition, but it wasn't exactly by design and more of a case of nobody knew what they were doing, they started experimenting and one side ended up dominating the air.
The spanish civil war was the test for the the nazis and italian fascists that got them ready for WWII
Planes and aerial bombing specially.
Planes and aerial bombing specially.
Yeah air superiority up until the end of the cold war was pretty much in a constant state of flux. The Nazis had it early in the war down to their superior BF-109s, only really matched by the spitfire (but even that had it's issues with fuel efficiency, despite it's turning advantage in the air). From what I recall the allies finally cemented air superiority with the introduction of the P51s.
Since then though I'd say the chasm has increased with the Western made 4th and 5th gen fighters.
Though I appreciate I'm only talking about dog fighting scenarios and know full well that air superiority isn't decided by gentleman-like fair skirmishes.
Actually, I disagree.
The Nazi's learnt all the wrong lessons from the Spanish Civil war. This is where survivorship bias really kicks into place and the Germans took the wrong thing:
1) The Republican Spanish were armed mostly with I-15's. (See Diagram below)These feckers gifted to them by the Soviet Union. Let's be honest, These things weren't going to prove any useful against Bf-109's. Ultimately the Soviets sent these as a testing ground of how well their aircraft would perform against modern western European aircraft (Hint, not well at the time). So, the Germans basically thought that their designs were impeccable and didn't really iterate beyond the Bf-109's until midway through the war. Instead they tried to perfect the Bf-109 and lead to about 8 variants, some of which were very good but others were pretty poor by the mid-way point of the war. It wasnt until 1942 where the Fw-190 really began coming up in numbers.
Partly, the Germans were right in their assumption of dominance; The French practically had no functional air force and Britain hadn't begun full re-armament yet. But they did not stop to really push forward their advantage until just before the war began and it wasn't until halfway through the way later iterations started going into the mass production.
2) The obsession with Dive bombing.
It was actually the Americans who were the first to truly adopt dive bombing during the inter-war period, as the British didn't believe in the cost/benefit analysis of danger to life and tactical use. The Americans conceptualized it almost solely for naval warfare.
During the Spanish Civil war, the Stuka was very impressive, however the reasons they were impressive were not factored into Luftwaffe consideration.
-The Stuka was fighting against an opponent without a real air force.
-The Stuka was fighting against an opponent with practically no real anti air defenses
- Fighting was concentrated mostly with un-mechanized and motorized group units, at some points in very dense formations.
Why did the Americans use dive bombing against ships? Ship anti-air defense is concentrated, to a very small degree of the battlefield. It is very intense therefore survivability in these conditions actually improve when the surface area of the plane decreases. Second of all, fighter escort organization in carrier -> carrier warfare was very chaotic and messy. It's much easier for a squadron of Dauntless to drop from altitude onto a concentrated group of ships without having full interception attempted. Finally, Ships are relatively large targets even when moving. The increase in accuracy of dive bombers is worth it because you turn the calculus from "probably won't hit ship" to "probably will hit ship".
That calculus all changes in Land warfare. First of all, Interdiction and Interception is far easy to co-ordinate from airfields on the group with multi squadrons. Therefore dive bombers are more easily intercepted. Second of all, Flak fire is far more distributed and less concentrated, which makes the relatively survivability of a dive less important because the reduction of the surface area is negligible when the fire isn't concentrated in one place anyway. Third of all, increasing the accuracy with a dive changes tactical level bombing from, "very unlikely to hit a moving vehicle" to "still very unlikely to hit a moving vehicle." The trade offs just simply were not worth it.
The dive bombers Germany used in Spain had absolutely awful flight characteristics, but they never learnt that lesson because there were no capable Republican fighters to actually exasperate this problem. Even in the peak of the Luftwaffe, in 1940 during the battle of France, a squadron of 6 early 30's P36 Curtiss' intercepted a squadron of 12 Stuka's and destroyed them in 6 minutes.
Because of the success of the Stuka in Spain, Luftwaffe leadership made stupid requirements that impeded a lot of their designs. Being that all their tactical level bombers must be able to dive. Even the 2 engine medium bombers like a Heinkel 111 could dive. It meant sacrificing a lot of flight characteristics. Heck, even their Fw-190 primary late war fighter could dive bomb, a requirement that is wholly pointless. A lot of compromises in Luftwaffe airframe design occured because of the wrong lesson learnt from Spain - that dive bombing is king. The Americans took the right approach, and Fighter bombers like the Mustang didn't need the stupid flight characteristic skew to enable dive bombing, but instead had more linear bombing trajectories, which although meant they were less accurate, they could do their main job absolutely much better. The differences between dive bombing and linear trajectory bombing was also really small in terms of efficacy. They had dedicated dive bombers for that, like the A-36 and didn't try to attach dive bombing onto everything.
3) The lack of a dedicated heavy bomber
The Germans bombing of UK for example, was very inefficient because they lacked real heavy bombers like the Allies had. One of the biggest reasons for this is they saw the performance of their medium and dive bombers in the Spanish civil war and decided it was enough. Again, Spanish civil war was an aerial peashooting competition but they took the wrong lessons. It wasnt until the He177 until the Germans had a functional heavy bomber because medium bombers just couldnt do the trick when it came to strategic bombing.
For the “let Putin have his way with Ukraine in exchange for peace” contingent…..
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I really enjoy reading this expertise explanation, really. As always. I knew 0, but completely 0 of what you explained so I much appreciated. I am sorry that I can only answer with some lazy half ass things as I am speaking about distant memory and obviously I don't have any technical expertise.Actually, I disagree.
The Nazi's learnt all the wrong lessons from the Spanish Civil war. This is where survivorship bias really kicks into place and the Germans took the wrong thing:
1) The Republican Spanish were armed mostly with I-15's. (See Diagram below)These feckers gifted to them by the Soviet Union. Let's be honest, These things weren't going to prove any useful against Bf-109's. Ultimately the Soviets sent these as a testing ground of how well their aircraft would perform against modern western European aircraft (Hint, not well at the time). So, the Germans basically thought that their designs were impeccable and didn't really iterate beyond the Bf-109's until midway through the war. Instead they tried to perfect the Bf-109 and lead to about 8 variants, some of which were very good but others were pretty poor by the mid-way point of the war. It wasnt until 1942 where the Fw-190 really began coming up in numbers.
Partly, the Germans were right in their assumption of dominance; The French practically had no functional air force and Britain hadn't begun full re-armament yet. But they did not stop to really push forward their advantage until just before the war began and it wasn't until halfway through the way later iterations started going into the mass production.
2) The obsession with Dive bombing.
It was actually the Americans who were the first to truly adopt dive bombing during the inter-war period, as the British didn't believe in the cost/benefit analysis of danger to life and tactical use. The Americans conceptualized it almost solely for naval warfare.
During the Spanish Civil war, the Stuka was very impressive, however the reasons they were impressive were not factored into Luftwaffe consideration.
-The Stuka was fighting against an opponent without a real air force.
-The Stuka was fighting against an opponent with practically no real anti air defenses
- Fighting was concentrated mostly with un-mechanized and motorized group units, at some points in very dense formations.
Why did the Americans use dive bombing against ships? Ship anti-air defense is concentrated, to a very small degree of the battlefield. It is very intense therefore survivability in these conditions actually improve when the surface area of the plane decreases. Second of all, fighter escort organization in carrier -> carrier warfare was very chaotic and messy. It's much easier for a squadron of Dauntless to drop from altitude onto a concentrated group of ships without having full interception attempted. Finally, Ships are relatively large targets even when moving. The increase in accuracy of dive bombers is worth it because you turn the calculus from "probably won't hit ship" to "probably will hit ship".
That calculus all changes in Land warfare. First of all, Interdiction and Interception is far easy to co-ordinate from airfields on the group with multi squadrons. Therefore dive bombers are more easily intercepted. Second of all, Flak fire is far more distributed and less concentrated, which makes the relatively survivability of a dive less important because the reduction of the surface area is negligible when the fire isn't concentrated in one place anyway. Third of all, increasing the accuracy with a dive changes tactical level bombing from, "very unlikely to hit a moving vehicle" to "still very unlikely to hit a moving vehicle." The trade offs just simply were not worth it.
The dive bombers Germany used in Spain had absolutely awful flight characteristics, but they never learnt that lesson because there were no capable Republican fighters to actually exasperate this problem. Even in the peak of the Luftwaffe, in 1940 during the battle of France, a squadron of 6 early 30's P36 Curtiss' intercepted a squadron of 12 Stuka's and destroyed them in 6 minutes.
Because of the success of the Stuka in Spain, Luftwaffe leadership made stupid requirements that impeded a lot of their designs. Being that all their tactical level bombers must be able to dive. Even the 2 engine medium bombers like a Heinkel 111 could dive. It meant sacrificing a lot of flight characteristics. Heck, even their Fw-190 primary late war fighter could dive bomb, a requirement that is wholly pointless. A lot of compromises in Luftwaffe airframe design occured because of the wrong lesson learnt from Spain - that dive bombing is king. The Americans took the right approach, and Fighter bombers like the Mustang didn't need the stupid flight characteristic skew to enable dive bombing, but instead had more linear bombing trajectories, which although meant they were less accurate, they could do their main job absolutely much better. The differences between dive bombing and linear trajectory bombing was also really small in terms of efficacy. They had dedicated dive bombers for that, like the A-36 and didn't try to attach dive bombing onto everything.
3) The lack of a dedicated heavy bomber
The Germans bombing of UK for example, was very inefficient because they lacked real heavy bombers like the Allies had. One of the biggest reasons for this is they saw the performance of their medium and dive bombers in the Spanish civil war and decided it was enough. Again, Spanish civil war was an aerial peashooting competition but they took the wrong lessons. It wasnt until the He177 until the Germans had a functional heavy bomber because medium bombers just couldnt do the trick when it came to strategic bombing.
As I mentioned, the spanish civil war it was a test, successful or not, the germans and the italians went to test their military capabilities. As you well explained (me without knowing) the test didn't go well for the aircrafts
But There were other parts of the tests that were successful. Maybe the aircraft development no, because as you said, the USSR gave completely shit equipment to the republicans at a very expensive rate (good way to propagate communism, useless pricks), but definitely they started to develope air foctrines and some initial concepts of the Blitzkrieg started to be developed there also. They learnt coordination with land and air forces.
And lets not forget about Gernika. They tested how to destroy a town completely with subsequent types of bombs and air fire so they could cause as much destruction possible. Then they replicated it in WWII what was a staple of WWII, brutalizing civil population through bombing. Even Goring said in Nuremberg that Spain was a testing and training ground for thousands of germans that had battle experience for 2 years when they entered in WWII. That include pilots, tanks, soldiers and even incipient submarines. Some equipement went the wrong track but some no and it was improved accordingly
They had the opportunity to test logistics, transportation and supply
IMO historically is well accepted that the spanish civil war was a test for WWII. But as all tests, not all works the way it should
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Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence says there's no way for Ukraine to win on the battlefield. Which has been obvious for over 2 years, but I'm guessing not even the most committed of the #SlavaUkraini crowd can call this guy a Russian troll or invoke Neville Chamberlain for saying so.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/03/ukraine-peace-talks-alternative-inevitable-defeat/
While I'm here, a couple of weeks ago I pointed out that the supplemental bill included a provision that the Biden Administration must provide an actual, coherent Ukraine strategy within 45 days of the bill's passing. I predicted that they would ignore the provision because they very obviously don't have a strategy (which is in fact implied in the provision itself - why do they need another 45 days to present a strategy for a war that is 27 months old?)
Well here's Lloyd Austin before the House Armed Services Committee a few days ago being asked about this very thing, and all but confirming that there never is, was or will be a plan for Ukrainian 'victory'. They've led Ukraine down the garden path and are now completely out of ideas.
Finally, in each of Zelenskiy's last 3 nightly addresses to the Ukrainian people (posted on his twitter), it's notable that even he ("nobody believes in our victory like I do" - Zelenskiy. "He deludes himself" - Zelenskiy adviser speaking to Time Magazine) has stopped talking about victory. Now he talks about getting the "global community" (he means China and India) to "force Russia to make peace".
One last article, worth a read:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-fortifications-8a72981dfdb755de6f8011b13f4d062e
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/03/ukraine-peace-talks-alternative-inevitable-defeat/
While I'm here, a couple of weeks ago I pointed out that the supplemental bill included a provision that the Biden Administration must provide an actual, coherent Ukraine strategy within 45 days of the bill's passing. I predicted that they would ignore the provision because they very obviously don't have a strategy (which is in fact implied in the provision itself - why do they need another 45 days to present a strategy for a war that is 27 months old?)
Well here's Lloyd Austin before the House Armed Services Committee a few days ago being asked about this very thing, and all but confirming that there never is, was or will be a plan for Ukrainian 'victory'. They've led Ukraine down the garden path and are now completely out of ideas.
Finally, in each of Zelenskiy's last 3 nightly addresses to the Ukrainian people (posted on his twitter), it's notable that even he ("nobody believes in our victory like I do" - Zelenskiy. "He deludes himself" - Zelenskiy adviser speaking to Time Magazine) has stopped talking about victory. Now he talks about getting the "global community" (he means China and India) to "force Russia to make peace".
One last article, worth a read:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-fortifications-8a72981dfdb755de6f8011b13f4d062e
*Opens Redcafe*
*Posts Russian Propoganda*
*Refuses to elaborate*
*Closes Redcafe*
*Posts Russian Propoganda*
*Refuses to elaborate*
*Closes Redcafe*
He could at least try to pretend to be an everton fan and make a couple of posts in the footie forums, but I doubt he can name a single everton player.
Apparently an under-estimation.
To be clear, you're saying the exact words of the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, as quoted by one of Britain's most pro-Ukrainian newspapers, are "Russian propaganda"? The exact words of the US Secretary of Defense, as delivered before the House Armed Services Committee are "Russian propaganda"? The words of Ukrainian president Zelenskiy are "Russian propaganda"? And finally, the words of Ukrainian soldiers, as quoted by US media, are "Russian propaganda"?
If 27 months of being wrong about the trajectory of this war is to teach you anything it will hopefully be that not everything that contradicts your assessment of the situation is "Russian propaganda", and not everyone talking common sense is a "paid Russian troll". There is a very basic reason why you’ve been wrong about this war: Russia’s leaders fundamentally mean what they say. Western leaders do not. Ukraine is the latest victim to belatedly discover this. You are listening to the wrong people. Yes, as someone pointed out a while back, I was demonstrably wrong in this thread about the time-line of this war (because I had no idea the West would be insane enough to actually think they could defeat Russia by pumping Ukraine full of weapons). But I have not been wrong about the trajectory.
As for engaging with you, I'll be blunt: you would be a waste of my time. I'll explain why. The first thing you did in your first response to me was to list your CV. And you know when people write "lol" on the internet and you know that at best they probably only smiled a bit? Well I legitimately laughed out loud reading it. And I say this to you with good intentions: the people you're impressing on here with that are the same people who have spent 2 years being impressed with the exact same kinds of blog posts from Phillips O'Brien and Ben Hodges and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon and Michael Clarke and all the other "NATO military experts" who have spent over 2 years promulgating nonsense about this war ("military expert" Phillips O'Brien was interviewed yet again by the BBC 2 weeks ago, talking about how the supplemental would put Ukraine back on the offensive. This is the same guy who said in March 2022 that the Russian army would collapse by May of 2022), but who nevertheless keep on getting posted in this thread as authorities.
That combined with your hubristic posts in the China thread and your statements about being very pro-West and being a part of Euromaidan - look, long story short, I get you, ok? I've had years and years of speaking to and reading folk like you. Your pictures of bicycle GPS glued to Russian jets, your facile grasp of history, your absolutely fundamental - this is common to almost all you ‘NATO military intelligence’ folk - lack of understanding of Russia; I get you. And you guys are exhausting to talk to because there is nothing on earth that can ever be said that will convince you that you're wrong. Look at your reaction just now - a terse and snarky dismissal of everything as "Russian propaganda", even though they are literally Western outlets quoting Western or Ukrainian officials.
So that's first. Second is this: your first reply to me was to deliver your CV as evidence for why you're qualified to speak on this subject (a major red flag, and very incidentally nothing you wrote in it tells me you're as remotely qualified as I am; its only merit was in helping me understand why you believe the things you do in the face of glaring evidence to the contrary). Your 2nd engagement was to call for me to be banned from this forum. Why? Because I had posted about the supplemental’s demand for a Ukraine strategy and I'd said the Biden Admin would not provide one. I have since been proven correct about that. But being right doesn't matter, does it? What matters is: you went straight to "ban this guy", simply for posting an opinion you did not like and that broke no rules of the forum.
For context - one page before my post, we had someone continuing to spam the place up with infamously garbage Ukrainian propaganda Twitter channels about how the Russian army is putting its soldiers on the tops of tanks as human shields (this genius actually had to have it explained to him why this was nonsense - it didn't occur to him naturally. Ironically this guy laughed at me a few months back for lamenting the state of Western media literacy). This was apparently fine with you. No calls to ban him for crapping up the thread with patent trash yet again. 2 weeks before that, we had another guy, the Quebec fellow, actively calling for Ukraine to mass murder Russian civilians in Crimea. To “get tough”, as he put it. Also seemingly fine with you. No calls for him to be banned.
But my posting an opinion you don’t like? Straight to “ban him”.
So you see what I mean. I get you. There are many, many like you and this war has brought them all to the surface again, as Iraq did and as Libya did (“oh but no, no, this one really IS black and white!!”). I’ve said many times in here for the last couple of years and I’ll probably say it many more times: I wish you “freedom and democracy” guys could hear yourselves sometimes. You are legitimately scary people. You are what you claim to hate. The guy who predicted fascism to one day return in the guise of liberalism had you in mind. Insults, ad hominem and calls for people to be banned for their opinions – these are the default settings of the self-appointed defenders and arbiters of a ‘civilised and liberal world order’.
The guy beneath you asked why I rarely post in any other thread. For many, many years I only lurked on this forum. I was born in Manchester, still have a house in Middleton, and United are my 2nd team. But this Ukraine war is deeply personal to me. I have family in both Russia and Ukraine, as many people involved in this conflict do. This war is not, as it very clearly is for certain people here in this thread, entertainment. I have watched with horror as the lunatics in Western governments have led Ukraine down this garden path, cheered on by weapons salesmen like Hodges and Clarke and their (literally) millions of #slavaukraini followers (I know, I know “But it was PUTIN who invaded!!!” Thanks for the 6-year-old’s grasp of the situation). Ukraine has been systematically destroyed by idiots invoking Neville Chamberlain and totally misstating why this war has happened. With proper Western leadership, it needn’t have gone this way. Ukraine needn’t have been destroyed, with its best-case scenario now being to retain some level of “sovereignty" (per Austin’s words in that video I posted), where “sovereignty” means “saddled with unpayable debt for generations” and losing the most lucrative parts of its territory, not to mention a generation of men.
And what’s depressing is that almost 2 and a half years in, you guys still are not learning the lessons of why you’ve have been consistently wrong about how this would turn out. You are still waffling on about how you represent “the world” and then being dumb-founded when the majority of the world doesn’t go along with you (Josep Borrell acknowledged this recently*). You are still not listening to anyone outside your increasingly small echo chamber. Everything contrary is still just “Russian propaganda” to you. People like me are still just “paid trolls”.
A miserably predictable pattern has played out. 2 years ago there were 2 broad groups of people. Group A was very, very large. It consisted of poorly-educated people drunk on proxy nationalism declaring that Ukraine was going to defeat Russia. Group B was very, very small. It consisted of people saying that Ukraine would be destroyed if this war wasn’t stopped as soon as possible with peace talks. Group A laughed at Group B and called them delusional fascist-sympathising morons. People who hadn’t heard of Neville Chamberlain a week before started writing with supreme authority about Neville Chamberlain.
2 years on, what Group B said would happen has happened and Group A have been proven wrong. And nevertheless, Group A is continuing to laugh at Group B and call them morons/trolls/bots etc. Because that’s how they operate. It doesn’t matter how many times reality shows them to be wrong again and again and again. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, you name it, it will never matter how many times they utterly f*ck everything up with their hubris, they still will never countenance being wrong. Easier instead to dismiss everything as “Russian propaganda” and call for people to be banned.
There is a poster here, I will not name him but I have reported him multiple times (the only time I’ve ever done that). He’s from either Finland or Estonia, I forget which. I have literally never engaged with him. But he periodically sends me PMs calling me every name under the sun. I do not engage with him, ever, as a matter of principle. His disgusting behaviour puts him beneath me. His last message was to tell me he hoped I was having to go to lots and lots of funerals. All of this is accompanied by the inevitable laughing emojis of course (those ‘civilised’ freedom-fighters again you see). And you know what? Yes, I do know people killed by this war, from both Russia and Ukraine. I’ll say again, this war is personal for me. There are people in the Israel thread who basically only post there. I don’t see anyone demanding they justify their presence on the site by posting in other threads as well.
I’m not here to engage with you, 'AfonsoAlves'. That’s my basic reply to you. For the same reason I don’t spend time trawling through the tweets and transcripts of all the other “NATO military intelligence” crowd that I named earlier. It’s impressive to people who haven’t already been reading the whole tired gibberish for literally decades. I’m here to post information that won’t get posted by other people, and from exclusively pro-Ukrainian Western sources so as to circumvent the “Russian propaganda” accusations (again, I under-estimated you). That’s it. People are free (so long as you don't have your way of banning opinions you don't like) to read it or not, they can dismiss Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence as “Russian propaganda” (!?) if they want to. But I’m going to post it regardless until told not to by a moderator, in among the smorgasbord of Ilya Ponomorenko tweets about how drunken Russian generals are cramming their smallest soldiers into cannons and inadvertently firing them at their own cities. I will not intrude on your NATO propaganda posts (sorry, but that’s simply what they are in my opinion) here or in the China thread. Possibly the one time I will directly ask your opinion of this war will be when it is over, Russia has achieved the 4 aims it stated it would back in 2022, and I will ask you what, if anything, you have learned from all this. The fates of places like the Philippines and Taiwan rest on all the “NATO military intelligence experts” finally learning some lessons. This for now however will serve as my engagement with you. Because again, there is nothing in it for either one of us.
*Borrell's statement that I mentioned earlier. He's the EU's high representative for foreign affairs. And so, "Russian propaganda" no doubt.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/02/26/western-dominance-ended-eu-josep-borrell/
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*I will not engage with you*
*Block text telling me why I'm a terrible human being*
You also miss the point entirely.
I'm not saying you are a propoganda pusher because what you say has a bias-tilt. We all do.
I'm pointing out the absolute absurdity of a poster who signed up to a football forum, to seemingly solely argue for the purpose of pushing pro-Russian viewpoints on a Manchester United forum without *any* engagement on any level on any other subject.
Regarding your point about my lack of understanding of Russia (I'm not going to address the other stuff because it's just rambling to be frank), I do understand Russia's point of view.
I've heard the points argued from both an in person official discussion, in Russia, to reading Russian forums to speaking to my pro-Russian friends.
I understand the Russian need for "buffers," the weird tilt they have towards the post-Soviet collapse and the paranoia and fear of invasion from the West because of centuries of history pertaining to this.
Let me tell you this, I can understand Russian motivations as well as telling you they're a load of horseshit and we should not cuddle to "Russian interests" that are devolved from fear, paranoia and an intrinsic misunderstanding of Western motivations.
What you're basically saying is, "We should let the Nazi's do what they want because we're failing to understand their motivations for wanting to gain Lebensraum in the East", but instead put in the modern Ukraine situation.
The Russian motivation is wrong, the Russian motivation is barbaric, depraved of any geopolitical reality and understanding and born out of a misguided sense of entitlement to a fade of Empire building that most nations agreed should belong to the past.
Why should the West listen to these "Russian interests" when they clearly belong to another time?
I also take extreme issue with you somehow issuing blame the parties that are supporting the Nation being invaded, because of the fact that "Russian interests must be met." What about Ukrainian interests? What about the fact that we fecking voted for the EU and Russia undergoes constant aggression to stop us doing this. We didn't fecking care about NATO in 2014, it was entirely an EU issue. You don't give a feck about acknowledgement of parties interests, because you have given 0 consideration of Ukraine's interests.
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Or let me put it to you in no uncertain terms, were Poland to say to Russia:
"Due to historic grief, Poland wants a 500km demilitarized zone on Russia's Western Border, and if you don't comply we will invade Belarus to make our own"
How would you feel? Aggrieved? Of course you bloody would, because it's a ridiculous demand. Yet that is what Russia is demanding.
"Due to historic grief, Poland wants a 500km demilitarized zone on Russia's Western Border, and if you don't comply we will invade Belarus to make our own"
How would you feel? Aggrieved? Of course you bloody would, because it's a ridiculous demand. Yet that is what Russia is demanding.
Ask him some questions about Everton. I don‘t believe he‘s not a troll either.
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Quick note on this. I have neve blamed countries supporting Ukraine because "Russian interests must be met". I never write about what should be, I write about what is going to be. I have never said anything remotely like "Russia's interests must be met". I say that they are irrevocably going to be met, in enormous part because of the idiocy of Western leaders, and at the senseless expense of Ukraine and Ukrainians. I am basically the only person in this thread who has spent 2 years demanding an actual, achievable Western strategy for Ukraine, that didn't involve nebulous parroting about "for as long as it takes" (will somebody in any Western government for the love of God finally answer this question: for as long as it takes to do what???) from self-interested Western leaders looking to distract from their own domestic problems. The West has not "supported" Ukraine, as you put it. They have used it. Supporting Ukraine would have been doing and giving absolutely everything within their power for Ukraine to win this war. They have not done that, despite prattling on about how "existential" this war is for the West itself. I said years before this war started that Ukraine would be sacrificed by the West (an uncontroversial opinion back then), and it has happened. It was I, in this thread, who said that the West needs to give Ukraine everything it needs to win the war, or else stop stringing them along with this piecemeal drip-feeding of a few tanks here, a few planes there, like they have been doing. With Blinken-level predictability you have invoked appeasement of the Nazis for why Russia must be stopped. Fine! F*CKING STOP THEM THEN! What you have been doing for 2 years is not stopping them, it is killing Ukraine. Do you understand me? STOP dismissing me as a Russian troll or whatever. I am literally the only person here who has been asking: what is the West's strategy for Ukraine to win this war? Because what they have been doing is not saving Ukraine, it is killing it.
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My username is 'Isaiah' on this Everton forum, on which I'm very active on footballing matters:
www.toffeetalk.com
Feel free to swing by and say hi.
I also use the same username as here (DT12) on www.grandoldteam.com, but I am less active there. But please still feel free to drop me a line and test my Everton bona fides.
On neither forum have I ever posted about politics. I only post about football. Neither of those forums has a thread quite like the absolute sheer f*cking insanity of this one.
I'll say it again for you: not everything you don't like to hear is "paid Russian propaganda trolling".
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Was listening to a Ukrainian military podcast with English subs where several troops get interviewed. The topic of mobilization is very hot and sensitive.
Unless troops get rotated, the frontline will eventually break. And there's a sense of frustration that the rest of Ukraine doesn't seem to feel the urgency.
Mind, these are feelings of a couple of individual soldiers. But the situation looks dire if troops aren't rotated.
Unless troops get rotated, the frontline will eventually break. And there's a sense of frustration that the rest of Ukraine doesn't seem to feel the urgency.
Mind, these are feelings of a couple of individual soldiers. But the situation looks dire if troops aren't rotated.
@DT12
For what it's worth, I remember this post months ago and it still applies now I think.
You provide a dissenting voice on this thread and actually a lot of the stuff you post probably isn't even wrong as such.
When it seems that you're in support of Russian war aims, as opposed to merely articulating a position, it clearly rubs people up the wrong way.
I think he supports russian aims and specially despise the West propaganda, that exist and there is a lot of it
I dont like that he sides on the russia camp, for obvious reasons, but certain points are correct, but as @2cents mentioned, he made some predictions that didnt happened at a time and there was a moment that ukraine had the uperhand and seemed that they were about to succeed. Now is the other way around and it is easy to go with upwind. But if for whatever reason it changes probably he will disappear again
It is easy to predict with your tide in favour
At the same time, the same can be said of many others that russia would fold in months, that the economy woild make russia surrender and many predictions that didnt happen.
All in all, there us a lot to disregard of @DT12 , but there are some realities that we dont like to accept
Yeah, the 'Well I'm here' line is pretty funny.
He's here until he wont be, depending on the situation at the front.
Love the Russia will achieve 4 aims from 2022 part too. Since they changed those aims few times already. From toppling a Kiev government to capturing all of Donbas.
I went and read @DT12’s posts in the Newbies after posting that, and they display what seems to me to be genuine sympathy for the plight of Ukraine and criticism of Putin’s decision to invade and Russian actions since. I would say their tone is considerably different to his posts in this thread.
In other news Medvedev has threatened the West again.
Here we go again with the D12 stuff. Can't wait to do the exact same "I'm sure you have good intentions, it's nice to have a dissenting voice" in four months, and then half a year after that, and then two more times in 2025 (when his "what I've been saying all along" has changed even more).
And the response will always come in the form of a far too long rant that does exactly what he accuses other people of doing.
And the response will always come in the form of a far too long rant that does exactly what he accuses other people of doing.
D12‘s views are exactly aligned with Russia‘s aims. That is all there is to it imo.
He has to be a paid troll. If he's not then he's a fool, leaving money on the table.